Rhonda Bracey: At Random

I loved these orange fabrics and how this quilt design worked together.

How to quilt it? I started by stitching in the ditch around all the hexagonal blocks and their elements, except the white surrounds near the centre. Then I stitched white flowers in the brown centres, followed by straight-line ruler work a quarter-inch from the seam lines in all the orange parts.

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Threads used:

• Top: Robison-Anton ‘Dark Tex. Orange’ (40 wt, rayon, colour 2469)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (light tan)

This magnificent and bright scrappy quilt had heaps of small squares and half-square triangles, and almost as many flying geese! Someone spent a lot of hours making it. How to quilt it? The busy-ness of the fabrics and the design didn’t lend themselves to anything too elaborate that would get lost in the craziness of this quilt. So I decided to do an old favourite in the main part of the quilt top — my variation of Angela Walters’ swirls, which I think sets off the sharp points nicely. For the border, I just stitched in the ditch around the flying geese and the pinwheels in the corners.

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec Glide ‘White’ (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour 10000)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (white)

This quilt had odd-shaped motifs in the blocks. How to quilt it? I started by stitching in the ditch around each half star while I waited for inspiration to come 😉

Eventually I decided to stitch half circles ‘behind’ each half star, with a quarter-inch echo — I used my semi-circular Handi Quilter rulers for these. I filled the background with a large meandering stipple.

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec Glide ‘White’ (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour 10000)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (white)

This scrappy ‘eye-spy’ quilt had lots of busy fabrics and a multitude of colours, so a simple all-over quilting motif was all that was necessary. Instead of a meandering stipple, I decided to do large bubbles/pebbles in yellow thread.

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Back:

Threads used:

• Top: Robison-Anton ‘Merit Gold’ (40 wt, rayon, colour 2463)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (white)

How to quilt this dramatic red and white quilt?

I agonised over how I would quilt it as I stitched in the ditch around ALL the blocks, eventually settling on doing a wonky star in red thread on the white crosses, and some very dense quilting on the ‘backgrounds’ to the red stars, thus creating a puffy square effect. I used my Line Tamer ruler for all the straight lines, except the dense quilting.

I thought about doing a white wonky star motif in the red squares, but decided against it as I quite liked the puffiness of those squares against the rest of the quilt.

I stitched straight ‘piano key’ lines in the tartan border, following the pattern in the fabric.

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec Glide ‘Cardinal’ (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour 700001)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (red)

This quilt was made up of approximately 2.5-inch squares of fabric ranging from light at the top to dark at the bottom. As with other very visually busy quilts, I just stitched it with a simple all-over motif — a large meandering stipple for this one, using a variegated thread of brown, green, and orange.

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Threads used:

• Top: Fil-Tec Harmony ‘Tweed’ (40 wt, cotton, colour 14076)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (light tan)

Another scrappy quilt, this time of approximately 1-inch squares sewn into 6×6 blocks. The person who made the quilt top also top-stitched the squares — I’m not sure why.

Because  it was such a busy quilt with all those fabrics and all those tiny squares, I just quilted it with a large meandering stipple, in a matching blue thread.

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Threads used:

• Top: Floriani (40 wt, rayon, colour PF373)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (light gray)

Someone spent a lot of time putting these blocks together! At least, that what it looks like — perhaps there was a quick way of doing these offset half-square triangles and pinwheels?

Each square was only about an inch or so wide, and lots of scrap fabrics were used, making it a very busy quilt, visually. There was no point doing elaborate quilting on it as it would just get lost in the busy-ness of the blocks, so I opted for a large meander across all the blocks in a matching blue thread. I used the same thread in the border, where I stitched mountain peaks of uneven heights (freehand, no rulers or markings).

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Threads used:

• Top: Floriani (40 wt, rayon, colour PF373)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (light gray)

This was almost a whole-cloth quilt! I starting by stitching in the ditch around the lovely applique, then measured out an created a border with a quarter-inch echo around it, and another similar border further out. This framed the applique and gave me a defined area in which to quilt. I use McTavishing inside this fake border area and left the borders free of stitching.

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Threads used:

• Top: Rasant (40 wt, cotton, colour 0861) for the stitch in the ditch; Fil-Tec Glide ‘Cream’ (40 wt, trilobal polyester, colour 20001) for the McTavishing and the border lines
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (light tan)

Busy fabrics/prints/colours and busy pattern, so the only way to quilt it — in my opinion — was to use an all-over design in a rounded shape to soften the geometric nature of the quilt top.

(Click on a photo to view it larger)

Threads used:

• Top: Robison-Anton ‘Raspberry’ (40 wt, rayon, colour 2426)
• Bottom: Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbin (lead gray)